#huntertf

The Huntsman's Call

Marcus had always considered himself ordinary. Average height, average build, the kind of person who blended into crowds at the grocery store. He worked remotely as a graphic designer, spent his evenings watching Netflix, and his idea of adventure was trying a new coffee shop. 

Marcus got the email at 3:17 p.m., wedged between a Slack notification and a calendar reminder he’d already ignored twice.

SUBJECT: Netflix Refresh – Alternate Title Card PROJECT: Beauty and the BeastNOTES: Testing character-centric variants. Looking for something bold. Temporary run.

He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his eyes.

Beauty and the Beast. Again.

The movie was back on Netflix temporarily, everything was temporary now he supposed… and marketing wanted alternate visuals to test engagement. Different emphasis, different faces, different emotional hooks. The usual A/B testing grind.

Marcus clicked open the brief.

Concept Direction:• De-center Belle • Emphasize presence, confidence, physicality • “Unexpected appeal”

Below that, a single name, bolded:

GASTON

Marcus snorted despite himself.

“Of course,” he muttered. “It’s always Gaston.”

He pulled up stills from the film. Gaston flexing in the tavern. Gaston grinning like he owned the room. Gaston with that absurd chest, that impossible posture, every inch of him performing masculinity like it was a full-time job.

Marcus had always found him funny. Ridiculous. A caricature.

But as he scrubbed through frames, isolating silhouettes, something tugged at the back of his mind.

They really went all in on him, Marcus thought. The shoulders. The arms. The neck.

God, the neck.

He zoomed in on one still—Gaston mid-boast, tankard raised, chest thrust forward. The animators hadn’t held back. There was no attempt at realism. He was exaggerated on purpose, larger than life in a literal sense.

A line surfaced unbidden, drifting up from some dusty corner of memory:

Roughly the size of a barge.

Marcus froze, fingers hovering over the trackpad.

He didn’t remember when he’d last thought that phrase. Maybe years ago. Maybe never. But now it repeated itself, oddly specific, oddly vivid.

Roughly the size of a barge.

He leaned closer to the screen.

Gaston didn’t just look strong. He looked heavy. Dense. Like he’d displace water if you dropped him in a lake. Like he was built to occupy space and dare the world to move around him.

Marcus swallowed.

“That’s stupid,” he said aloud, as if the room might argue back.

Still, his hand moved without conscious instruction. He began roughing out a new composition—tight crop, Gaston centered, filling the frame. No Beast. No Belle. Just him, shoulders almost too wide for the aspect ratio, grin confident to the point of arrogance.

The title text sat low, nearly pressed out by his bulk.

Beauty and the Beast—but the eye went nowhere near the words.

Marcus adjusted lighting, deepened shadows along the chest and arms, subtly thickened the neck silhouette. He told himself it was just good design—emphasis, hierarchy, visual weight.

Yet the longer he worked, the stranger he felt.

He sat a little straighter.

He rolled his shoulders once, stiff from disuse.

Roughly the size of a barge.

The phrase echoed again, warmer.

When he finally sent the draft off, the sun was setting and his stomach was growling louder than he expected.

Marcus pushed back from his desk, feeling oddly restless though ultimately snoozing off.

The came the dream, he stood in a rustic tavern, tankard raised high, while a crowd cheered his name. He felt powerful in a way he'd never experienced—broad-shouldered, commanding, magnetic. When he woke, the feeling lingered like morning fog, refusing to dissipate with his usual coffee and toast.

"You look different," his roommate Jen said at breakfast that morning, squinting at him over her cereal bowl.

"Different how?" Marcus asked, catching his reflection in the toaster. Same brown hair, same unremarkable face.

"I don't know. Taller? No, that's stupid. More... present, I guess?"

He shrugged it off, but throughout the day, he noticed small changes in himself. He sat straighter at his desk. When his neighbor's delivery box arrived at their door by mistake, Marcus picked it up with ease—and it was heavy, at least forty pounds, he lifted it like it was nothing.

Roughly the size of a barge.

He almost laughed at himself. “What does that even mean?” 

That evening, staring into his refrigerator, Marcus felt a strange dissatisfaction with his usual dinner options. The leftover pad thai, the veggie burgers, the salad kit—none of it appealed. Almost on autopilot, he found himself at the grocery store, loading his cart with things he rarely bought: thick steaks, whole chickens, pounds of potatoes, and carton after carton of eggs.

"Someone's doing a carnivore diet," the checkout clerk joked.

Marcus laughed awkwardly, not sure why he'd bought so much. But that night, as he pan-seared a ribeye and roasted fingerling potatoes in butter, something inside him felt right for the first time in years. He ate with a hunger he didn't know he possessed, tearing into the meat with satisfaction, mopping up the juices with the potatoes.

Over the next two weeks, Marcus started waking before dawn without an alarm, energized in a way that coffee had never managed. His morning routine shifted without conscious decision: fifty push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, stretches that emphasized his shoulders and chest. His body responded with startling speed. Muscles that had always been theoretical concepts under his soft exterior began to emerge, defined and demanding attention.

His clothes grew tight. First the shoulders of his t-shirts strained, then his thighs tested the seams of his jeans. Jen noticed, of course.

"Are you on steroids?" she asked bluntly one morning, watching him crack six eggs into a pan.

"What? No!" Marcus protested. "I've just been working out."

"You've been working out for like two weeks. That's not normal growth."

She wasn't wrong. Marcus had bought a scale, watching with fascination as the number climbed—five pounds, ten pounds, fifteen. But it wasn't fat. His reflection showed a body transforming into something powerful, something primal. His jaw seemed squarer. His hair, always fine and forgettable, had grown thicker, with a slight wave that fell rakishly across his forehead.

And he was hungry. Constantly, ravenously hungry.

His egg consumption had become almost ritualistic. He started with three for breakfast, then five, then eight. He began drinking them raw, cracking them into a glass and downing them in smooth gulps. The texture didn't bother him—if anything, it felt natural, efficient, right. He read articles about protein absorption, about traditional diets, about strongmen and their eating habits.

"That's disgusting," Jen said, walking in on him downing his tenth egg of the day.

"It's just protein," Marcus said, wiping his mouth. His voice sounded different lately—deeper, more resonant. "People have been eating raw eggs for centuries."

"People have also been getting salmonella for centuries."

But Marcus felt invincible. His body hummed with vitality. At night, he dreamed of forests and hunts, of tracking deer through morning mist, of the satisfying thunk of an arrow finding its mark.

The hunting obsession brought on by dreams started subtly.

Marcus found himself watching videos about archery, about tracking, about wilderness survival. Not modern hunting with rifles and camouflage—that felt too distant, too technological. He was drawn to something more primal: the bow, the arrow, the direct contest between hunter and prey.

He bought his first bow on impulse, a beautiful recurve made of laminated wood. In his apartment, he practiced his draw, feeling the resistance of the string, the flex of the limbs. His arms, now significantly larger than they'd been a month ago, handled the sixty-pound draw weight easily.

"You're going to shoot out a window," Jen warned, watching him from the doorway.

"I'm being careful," Marcus said, releasing his draw slowly, professionally. "Besides, I'm taking it to a range this weekend."

At the archery range, something clicked into place. The first time his arrow struck the target dead center, Marcus felt a surge of triumph that nearly buckled his knees. This was what he was meant for. Not sitting at a computer pushing pixels around—this. The hunt. The skill. The primal satisfaction of the perfect shot.

He went back every day that week. Then twice a day. His accuracy became uncanny, drawing admiring looks from other archers and eventually an invitation to join a traditional archery club.

"You're a natural," the instructor told him, a grizzled man named Tom who'd been shooting for forty years. "Most people take months to develop that kind of instinct. You've got it in weeks."

Marcus beamed, his chest swelling with pride. He'd also noticed his chest was simply swelling—period. His pectorals had become pronounced shelves, his shoulders so broad he'd had to buy all new shirts in a larger size. His waist, paradoxically, had stayed lean, creating a dramatic V-shape that turned heads when he walked down the street.

He caught more glances now. Women especially. They looked at him differently, with an interest that ranged from appreciative to hungry. Marcus found himself walking with a new swagger, shoulders back, chin up. Sometimes he'd catch his reflection in store windows and barely recognize himself—this confident, powerful figure striding through the world like he owned it.

But sometimes, late at night, a small voice in his head would whisper concern. This isn't you. This isn't who you are.He'd ignore it, crack another four eggs into a glass, and watch hunting videos until the voice faded. For no clear reason, that same phrase surfaced again, uninvited: roughly the size of a barge.

The logging started by accident.

Marcus had joined a historical recreation group that practiced traditional skills blacksmithing, leatherworking, and timber harvesting. They met in a rural area outside the city, where they had permission to selectively cut trees from a overgrown lot.

The first time Marcus hefted an axe, something fundamental shifted inside him.

The weight felt perfect in his hands. The swing came naturally, the rhythm of chopping wood as intuitive as breathing. He worked for hours, splitting logs, hauling timber, stacking cord upon cord of firewood. His body, now heavily muscled and powerful, excelled at the task.

"Jesus, man, take a break," one of the other guys said, watching Marcus hoist a massive oak log onto his shoulder. "That thing has to weigh two hundred pounds."

Marcus barely felt it. He carried it across the yard and dropped it onto the pile with a satisfying thud. His shirt, already tight, had finally given up the ghost, splitting across the shoulders. He pulled it off without embarrassment, working shirtless in the autumn sun, his skin bronzing, his muscles pumping with blood and exertion.

He felt alive. He felt right.

When he wasn't at his computer (which was less and less these days—his freelance work had become an afterthought), he was at the historical recreation site, cutting timber, practicing archery, or working on his physical conditioning. He'd created a circuit training routine involving log lifts, stone carries, and sprints that would have hospitalized him two months ago. Now he completed it daily, pushing for heavier logs, bigger stones, faster times.

His diet had become the stuff of legend among his new friends.

"Twelve eggs this morning," Marcus announced at the recreation site, drinking his protein shake. "All raw. Plus a pound of beef for breakfast."

"That's insane," said James, one of the blacksmiths.

"That's commitment," Marcus corrected, flexing unconsciously. "The old-time strongmen ate like this. Eggs, meat, potatoes. Simple, powerful fuel."

He'd started documenting his diet and training online, creating an Instagram account called @TheHuntsmansDiet. His posts featured artful photos of his meals—massive steaks, platters of roasted potatoes, glasses of raw eggs, all arranged with the graphic designer's eye he still possessed. His captions waxed poetic about traditional masculinity, about strength, about reclaiming primal vitality in a modern world.

The account exploded. Within weeks, he had thousands of followers, then tens of thousands. Men wanted to be him. Women wanted to be with him. The comments flooded in: inspirational, thirsty, aspirational, occasionally concerned.

"This is what real men look like," one comment read.

"Are you single? Asking for me," another said.

"Dude you've gained like 60 pounds of muscle in two months, are you on gear?" asked a more skeptical follower.

Marcus responded to that one personally: "Just eggs, meat, potatoes, and hard work. The way men have built strength for thousands of years."

It wasn't entirely a lie. He wasn't taking steroids. But some distant, increasingly faint part of his mind wondered if something else was happening, something he couldn't quite name.

During his timber work, Marcus would suddenly see himself differently—not in jeans and a torn t-shirt, but in a tunic of deep red and brilliant yellow, leather boots, a thick belt. His bow wasn't modern laminated wood but something more ancient, more organic. The forest around him would shimmer, become older, wilder.

At first, he shook off these flashes as daydreams, products of too much time in the historical recreation community. But they grew more frequent, more vivid. When he hefted logs, he'd see himself as a medieval woodsman, providing timber for his village. When he practiced archery, he'd see himself as a huntsman bringing down deer for a lord's table.

The red and yellow kept appearing. He found himself drawn to those colors, buying a red henley that stretched magnificently across his chest, yellow accents for his apartment. He commissioned a custom leather belt with red and yellow tooling. When the historical recreation group held a medieval feast, Marcus had a tunic made in exactly those shades—and wearing it, he felt more himself than he ever had in modern clothes.

"You look like you walked out of a fairy tale," Jen said when she saw photos. "A really buff fairy tale."

Her tone had changed over the past months. Less sisterly concern, more... something else. Marcus noticed her looking at him differently, the way everyone seemed to look at him now. He'd become magnetic, drawing attention wherever he went. His confidence had grown to match his body—unshakeable, almost arrogant.

"Maybe I did," Marcus said, flexing in the mirror. His arms were enormous now, his chest like armor plating, his legs like tree trunks. He barely fit through doorways without turning sideways. "Maybe this is who I was always supposed to be."

"That doesn't even make sense," Jen said, but her voice was uncertain.

Marcus didn't argue. Deep down, in a place he rarely visited anymore, he knew she was right. This didn't make sense. People didn't transform like this, didn't become different people in three months. But that voice of doubt was so quiet now, drowned out by the roar of satisfaction he felt every time he lifted a log, fired an arrow, downed another half-dozen eggs.

His old self—the graphic designer, the Netflix watcher, the average guy—felt like a dream, an uncomfortable costume he'd finally shrugged off. He was immovable now. A presence that took up space, that bent the world around him. His neck and shoulders looked impossibly thick, his silhouette wide as a doorway.

A phrase drifted through his mind, perfectly synchronized with his reflection: roughly the size of a barge.

He smiled at that. It felt accurate.

"Marcus, I'm worried about you," Jen said, her voice softer now, almost pleading. "You're not yourself anymore. You've changed so much, and I just—"

"Changed?" Marcus turned from the mirror, and the movement was enough to make Jen take a step back. He dominated the space of their shared living room, made it feel small. "I've improved. I've become what I was always meant to be."

"But you're... you're obsessed. The eggs, the meat, the hunting, all of this—" she gestured at his red and yellow decorated space, at the bow hanging on the wall, at the massive meal prep containers filling the fridge. "This isn't normal. You need to talk to someone, maybe a therapist or—"

"A therapist?" Marcus laughed, and the sound was too loud, too confident, filling the room like a physical force. "To talk about what? About how I've built the body I always wanted? About how I've found purpose? About how I'm actually successful now instead of wasting away designing logos for tech startups?"

"That's not fair," Jen said, her voice trembling slightly. "You were fine before. You were you."

"I was weak," Marcus said, his voice dropping to something cold and dismissive. "I was soft. I was forgettable. No one looked at me the way they look at me now." He flexed his massive arm, the bicep swelling to the size of a melon. "You look at me that way now too. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Jen's face flushed. "That's not—this isn't about that."

"Isn't it?" Marcus took a step closer, towering over her. He could see her reaction—the way her breath caught, the way her eyes widened. He was intoxicating now, he knew it. Magnetic. Powerful. "You're just like everyone else. You want what I've become, but you're scared of it too. Scared that the weak little Marcus you used to know is gone."

"He is gone," Jen said, and there were tears in her eyes now. "And I miss him. I miss my friend."

For a moment—just a flickering instant—something in Marcus's chest tightened. A whisper of the old him, the softer him, wanted to comfort her, to apologize, to explain that he was still in here somewhere.

But then that whisper drowned in a wave of disdain.

"Your friend was pathetic," Marcus said flatly. "Weak. Indecisive. Going nowhere. I don't miss him at all." He turned back to his reflection, admiring the way the red henley strained across his massive shoulders. "In fact, I think it's time we made some changes around here."

"What do you mean?" Jen asked, her voice small.

"I mean I'm done with roommates," Marcus said, not even bothering to look at her. "I need more space. Space to train, to prepare my meals, to focus on my content. You've been... tolerable, I suppose. But frankly, you're a distraction now. An anchor to who I used to be."

"Are you—are you kicking me out?" Jen's voice cracked. "Marcus, this is my apartment too. We signed the lease together."

"And I'll buy you out," Marcus said, still examining his reflection, turning to see how his back muscles looked in the tight fabric. "Double your half of the deposit. Triple it, even. I'm making plenty of money now." He finally turned to face her, and his expression was one of bored arrogance. "Consider it a generous offer. Most people would be grateful."

"Most people would be grateful?" Jen repeated, her voice rising. "We've been friends for five years! We've lived together for three! And you're just... dismissing me like I'm nothing?"

"You're not nothing," Marcus said with a careless shrug that made his shoulders roll like mountains. "You're just... not relevant anymore. Not to who I am now. You want me to pretend to be that small, scared little man you used to know? Sorry. He's gone. And good riddance."

He picked up his gym bag—a massive thing he'd had custom-made to fit his protein containers, his archery gear, his change of clothes in increasingly large sizes—and slung it over his shoulder with ease.

"I'm going to the timber site," he announced. "I expect you'll start looking for a new place. I'll give you two weeks. That's more than fair."

"Marcus—"

"And Jen?" He paused in the doorway, his frame so broad he had to angle himself to fit through. "Stop looking at me like that. Like you're mourning someone. That person you knew? He was a chrysalis. Weak, temporary, meaningless. I'm what emerged. I'm what he was always supposed to become."

He didn't wait for her response. He simply left, And waited for her to go.

Jen represented the old life, the old Marcus. And that Marcus was dead.

He was something better now a winner a hunter , a conqueror. Something magnificent.

The image of ad victoriam, himself, perfectly synchronized: roughly the size of a barge.

By month six, Marcus had become unrecognizable.

At six-foot-three (he'd somehow gained three inches in height, which his doctor couldn't explain), 240 pounds of muscle, with a jaw that could cut glass and hair that fell in thick, dark waves, he looked like a romance novel cover come to life. His voice had deepened to a resonant baritone that made people stop and listen when he spoke. His presence filled rooms.

@TheHuntsmansDiet had grown to over a hundred thousand followers. Marcus posted daily content: videos of his training (hoisting logs that would challenge three normal men), his meals (he was up to fifteen raw eggs a day now, plus three pounds of meat and mountains of roasted potatoes), his hunting practice, his timber work. He'd started a blog, written in a style that was part manifesto, part instruction manual.

"Modern man has forgotten his purpose," he wrote. "We've become soft, sitting in offices, eating processed garbage, letting our bodies and spirits atrophy. But it doesn't have to be this way. Through proper nutrition—eggs, the most perfect protein; beef, the fuel of warriors; potatoes, the sustainer of working men—and through meaningful physical work, we can reclaim what we've lost."

The posts resonated. Men across the country started their own versions of his diet, posting their results, creating a whole community of #HuntsmanDiet disciples. Marcus became a figurehead for a movement he'd accidentally created, a symbol of masculine vitality in an age that had forgotten what that meant.

He'd quit his graphic design work entirely. Between sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and a Patreon with several thousand subscribers, he made more money sharing his lifestyle than he ever had pushing pixels. He'd moved out of the apartment with Jen (who'd confessed feelings for him that he'd gently redirected), finding a cabin in the rural area near the historical recreation site.

The cabin suited him. It had land where he could practice archery, space for timber work, a huge kitchen where he could prepare his massive meals. He decorated simply: his bows on the walls, animal pelts he'd cured himself (he'd graduated to actual hunting, taking deer with his recurve bow in a display of skill that awed even experienced hunters), furniture he'd built from the timber he'd cut.

And clothes in red brown and yellow.

He couldn't explain his obsession with those colors, but his closet had become a sea of crimson and gold. Tunics, modern shirts in those shades, leather goods dyed to match. When he dressed for videos or public appearances, he looked like some amalgamation of medieval huntsman and modern fitness influencer—and it worked, somehow. It felt right.

nine and a half months after the first dream, Marcus woke at dawn in his cabin.

He performed his morning routine with practiced ease: two hundred push-ups, three hundred sit-ups, a hundred pull-ups on the bar he'd installed between two trees. His body moved like a machine, powerful and precise. When he caught his reflection in the cabin window, he barely remembered the old Marcus—that smaller, uncertain man felt like a stranger now.

For breakfast, he prepared his signature meal: a dozen raw eggs cracked into a massive glass, downed in smooth gulps. Two thick venison steaks from a deer he'd taken last week, seared rare. A mountain of roasted potatoes, crispy with butter. He ate with satisfaction, feeling the fuel enter his system, feeding his magnificent body.

After breakfast, he went to the timber site. A massive oak had fallen in a storm, and the recreation group was working together to section it up. Marcus took the largest section—a trunk piece that normally would require three men and a cart. He hefted it onto his shoulders alone, barely straining under what had to be three hundred pounds of solid wood. The others watched in awe as he carried it across the clearing.

"Marcus, you're not human," James said, shaking his head.

"Just well-fed and well-trained," Marcus replied, his voice booming across the site. He dropped the log and flexed, his muscles rippling under his tight red shirt. "Any man could do this if they committed themselves."

It wasn't entirely true, and he knew it. But it felt true enough.

That afternoon, he set up for a new video. He'd gotten professional about his content—good camera, proper lighting, edited videos that showcased not just his meals and training but his whole philosophy. He positioned the camera to catch him in his full glory: standing in the forest clearing in a custom-made red and yellow tunic, his bow in hand, a quiver of arrows on his back.

"The huntsman's life isn't just about what you eat," he told the camera, his voice confident and commanding. "It's about reclaiming your purpose as a man. It's about strength, skill, and providing. Our ancestors hunted for their survival. They built their homes with their own hands. They ate simple, powerful food—eggs and meat and vegetables from the earth. We've lost that connection, but we can find it again."

He demonstrated his archery, hitting bullseyes at fifty yards, his form perfect. He lifted logs, showing his timber technique. He prepared a meal on camera—eight eggs cracked and consumed, a massive steak cooked over an open fire, potatoes roasted in the coals—and ate it with relish.

"This is my sixtieth day eating fifteen raw eggs," he announced. "Some people think it's extreme. I think it's getting back to basics. This is how strongmen trained in the old days. This is what built champions."

The video would get half a million views those simps he hired on would make sure of it and either way. The comments would be rapturous.

That evening, as the sun set over his clearing, Marcus sat on his porch in his red and yellow tunic, a tankard of mead in his hand (he'd started brewing it himself—another traditional skill mastered). He felt utterly content, utterly himself, in a way he'd never experienced in his old life.

Somewhere, buried deep, a tiny voice whispered that this wasn't who he was, that he'd been someone different, someone quieter and smaller. But the voice was so faint now, so easily dismissed. This was who he was meant to be. This was his true self, finally emerged.

Marcus raised his tankard to the setting sun, to the forest, to the life he'd built.

"No one hunts like me," he murmured to himself, a strange phrase that felt both foreign and perfectly natural. "No one shoots like me. No one's neck is incredibly thick like me."

He laughed at his own words, not quite sure where they'd come from, but they felt right. Everything felt right now.

The transformation was complete. The huntsman had fully awakened, and the old Marcus—if he'd ever truly existed—was gone, faded like morning mist in the sun.

In his cabin behind him, his meal prep for tomorrow waited: two dozen eggs in the refrigerator, five pounds of beef, a sack of potatoes. His bows hung ready on the wall. His timber axe rested by the door. His social media accounts glowed with notifications—thousands of people eager to follow his lead, to become their own version of what he represented.

Marcus drained his mead and stood holding three eggs in his hand for the money shot, his massive frame silhouetted against the dying light. Somewhere in a distant memory, a smaller man had once wondered what adventure felt like.

Now he knew. He was adventure. He was strength and skill and primal power given form.

He was The Barge and he would never go back.